The Zimbabwe government requires $27 billion to implement its economic blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset), in the next five years.
By Victoria Mtomba Business reporter
Speaking at a workshop organised by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) on ZimAsset, acting director of fiscal policy in the Ministry of Finance Jonah Mushayi said Treasury was working on Special Economic Zones that would offer special fiscal and trading platforms.
“We have developed the necessary regulatory framework. There is a team that has been dispatched to Uganda to learn about Special Economic Zones,” Mushayi said.
“There are certain things we need to attend to as government and business. $27 billion is required for the blueprint. It’s quite a huge figure over five years.”
He, however, said the country was facing various challenges including liquidity constraints, high interest rates and a decline in money supply.
Mushayi said government has so far identified the sources of funding for the blueprint as domestic mobilisation, regional financiers, debt relief as well as accessing external sources.
The country’s debt stands at $6,1 billion.
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Mushayi said the country’s budget of $4,1 billion cannot do much to fund the financial needs of the country as 73% of the budget goes towards employment costs, 15% is for recurrent expenditure and capital expenses will be 12%.
“We need to pursue joint ventures, we have scope to achieve greater mileage,” he said.
Mushayi said in 2013 $1,8 billion was received from diaspora remittances and government was developing a document to create Diaspora bonds.
Deputy chief secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Christian Katsande said the Office of the President was working on a regulatory framework for Special Economic Zones to attract investment in the country as the implementation continues.
“The Ministry of Finance is working on a regulatory framework for Special Economic Zones. We need to finalise that matter urgently.
“We are not looking at a perfect document. We have seen other nations generating economic activities, hubs that have focused either on Information Communication Technology or opportunities,” he said.
CZI president Charles Msipa said the workshop was about unpacking the role of the private sector in ZimAsset.
The industry body’s chief economist Lorraine Chikanya said the business community has identified gaps in the blueprint that include lack of implementation plan for the indigenisation policy and how government will address liquidity crisis in the economy.
The document has categorised the various sectors of the economy into clusters and set goals on how they will achieve the set target. The social services and poverty eradication cluster will enable government to improve the living standards of the citizens.
ZimAsset is a five-year plan to 2018 and it seeks to ensure that government will be committed towards building a robust and sustainable results-oriented socioeconomic growth and performance management culture while performance contracts will be introduced at all senior management levels in the public sector.
